Events this Weekend: 4.1-4.4

On Wednesday, two new exhibits opened at the Design Museum in London. For the first, Urban Africa: David Adjaye, architect David Adjaye put down his drafting pencil and picked up a camera. Though he usually is occupied designing stunning modern buildings, for this show, he traveled through Africa documenting the landscape and urban areas, the results of while are now on display.

The second new exhibition at the Design Museum is titled Sustainable Futures and focuses on just that via new products, projects, and concepts aimed at affecting change. The exhibition is organized around five themes: cities (with designs for carbon-neutral cities), energy and economics, food (through projects like edible gardens), materiality, and creative citizens. Both exhibits are on display through September 5, 2010.

On Friday, the Morgan Library and Museum in New York debuts Palladio and His Legacy: A Transatlantic Journey. The show puts on display 31 original drawings by Andrea Palladio, the influential 16th-century Venetian architect whose writings and design influenced the works of later designers like Christopher Wren. His style is now referred to as Palladian and is characterized by symmetry, perspective, and the use of elements common to ancient Roman and Greek architecture, like columns and arches. The drawings on view are accompanied by models of buildings that have since drawn inspiration from Palladio, like Thomas Jefferson's unrealized design for the White House. The exhibit is open through August 1, 2010.

On Sunday, Slash: Paper Under the Knife and Design USA: Contemporary Innovation are open for their final day. Slash opened at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York on October 7, 2009, and features works in paper by international artists, ranging from book cutouts to drawings to paper models. Design USA debuted at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York on October 16, 2009. The exhibition showcases winners of the first decade of the National Design Awards in architecture, landscape design, interior design, product design, communication design, corporate design, interaction design, and fashion.

But when one door closes, another one opens and on Sunday, that door is to the exhibit Olafur Eliasson and Ma Yansong: Feelings are Facts at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. The Danish-Islandic artist and Chinese architect teamed up to create a an environment in the center's main hall that takes visitors on a walk through a fog-filled space illuminated with fluorescent tubes of red, green, and blue light. The installation is open through June 20, 2010.

Know of a great modern art, architecture, or design exhibition or event that should be added to our online calendar? Submit your suggestions here.